Did somebody hack into 62kgw's account? I know that he had his own opinions that rubbed some people the wrong way...and that's OK. However, the "old" 62kgw would have never posted a random comment on an existing thread, such as his inquiry about Edenpure heaters on the "Towers and Such" discussion.

Agreed. It's outta character for sure. Maybe give 62 the benefit of the doubt, until we know for sure?

Also, if that's true, where is 62 anyway?

Good point Alfredo. Short of starting a thread about the old KGW in the 70s -- and comparing his current responses to the past -- I dunno if there is a concrete way to know. I do remember him as more rational last summer.

I can offer the general observation that this board generates some odd effects. For instance, when I have not posted for a few weeks, the spam almost completely disappears from my inbox. After a post or two, it returns with a vengeance. Coincidence?

Hide your email, problem solved.

Yep.

E-mail harvesters can and do spider crawl websites looking for active e-mail addresses.

Vitalogy, one would think that is the obvious magic bullet. I am well aware of how these newfangled boxes work. Over the past year or so, I have tried it both ways and actually it makes no difference at all. Judging by the subject lines, I do not believe it is all bot-generated.

As far as going completely anonymous, I enjoy the dialog I have off-board too much to cut off that resource. I suppose it would not hurt to make folks go through a few more hoops to correspond with me. This was not a complaint, merely an observation.

I'm there too. SPAM can be managed, so I manage it. Bummer, but there it is!

The gmail system appears to handle this fairly well. I get maybe 10 spams from several hundred per day. Not an unlivable ratio.

Also, I don't think the subject lines are linked. Live e-mail addresses are one thing. What gets sent to them is another...

Exactly. When the waves of crap begin from this board, I tend to get a fair amount of junk that poses as "the latest worthy liberal causes" or "new tech gadgets" so I naturally figured it was someone here with waaay too much time on their hands.

I think the original question does bear consideration. If the past is any indication, having a solid password around here is vital.

Use disposeable e-mail addy's. When one gets overloaded with crap create a new one and toss the old one. Save your real addy for private communications with those people you choose to give it to.

Or just come in and say " I was hacked " or " I meant what I said and I said what I meant." - Faithful Elephant.

The point about disposable email addys and the like is still a handy thing though. So your point isn't lost on me.

Email accounts, Politicians and Diapers all have someting in common. They need to be changed often and for the same reason!

My recommendation is to use an e-mail address that has some form of spam filtering. I've found that having the ability to have off-the-board conversations in e-mail is a pretty important feature, and in some cases, moving conversations off the board is the good-etiquette thing to do.

As an aside, I've been doing system administration on a small server that hosts some mailman discussion lists and a few web pages. In doing so, I've found that there are several different types of spam-bots that work in different ways. One of the spamming systems harvests e-mail addresses from Web pages. These addresses are then compiled into a list where they stay for who knows how long. Removing an e-mail address from all crawlable Web pages will not stop or reduce the volume of spam once it starts. Disabling the mailbox will not stop the bots from trying to send spam to the disabled address. Another class of spam-bots appear to be designed to work on specific types of mailing list or discussion board software. One such bot looks for publically announced mailing lists on a mailman list server and then spams the various default addresses associated with the list. This is done in hopes of the list server passing the spam along to list subscribers (if the administrator neglects to limit posting to list subscribers only) and/or to the list administrators. I would not be surprised if there is a spam-bot that is designed to spam active participants on this board.

I had some e-mail problems stemming from being in someone else's Outlook Express address book here years ago. Fortunately, it got resolved but not without receiving e-mails from who was my ISP at the time, who almost canceled me for abuse (even though I wasn't the one doing it).

The way I have things set up these days is like this:

1. 1st level real e-mail address - you don't get this unless I want you to.
2. 2nd level real e-mail address - for situations where I don't want to give a "spam" address, or it would be inappropriate to do so (i.e., job applications).
3. spam addresses - mailing lists, guestbooks, other places/situations where I don't really know who's getting the info. More permanent, as I need to remember the address in order to be able to use it.
4. disposable spam addresses - set up at somewhere like hotmail, mail.com, ZZN or some other place
5. disposable e-mail services - mailinator rules!

My recommendation is first off, if you want to be as garbage-free as possible with e-mail, set up a brand-new address and only give it out to close people you trust. Ask them to please not put the e-mail address in their Outlook Express and/or online address books - if they insist, tell them you have a different e-mail address for that, and give them that separate e-mail address.

Definitely, on message boards and blogs and other places, use a nonvaluable e-mail address that you don't care what happens to it. As an example, the one I list here is a ZZN address that means nothing to me, and ZZN is one of those places where you can set up another box extremely quickly and easily and dump the old one at any time.

One other thing you can do here is hide your e-mail address, then create another profile field and list you e-mail address as "email (at) the domain the box is at (dot) com," and humans who want to contact you will still be able to do so.

some reason the email I list NEVER gets spam.... lucky me. Of course it never gets much of ANY mail.

I could forward you some Viagra mail if you want! That might perk up that ol' mailbox for ya!

Interesting strategies, but too complicated for me.

I'm in about the worst possible situation for spam - I have an email that's been around since 1994ish, has been posted on usenet, numerous message boards and mailing lists, so it's got to be on every spam list imaginable. The username of the address is only 4 characters long, so it's very susceptible to the 'randomly generated username' spams. I also have it visible here and on other message boards.

My solution - forward everything to a Gmail address and read it there. Gmail's amazing filters take care of 99% of the spam, leaving 0-3 messages a day for me to delete. I currently have 1467 spams in my spam folder, covering the past month.

Of course it sucks when Gmail is having technical difficulties, but that's a pretty rare event.

Gmail is Google mail and Google just purchased Postini which is a great Spam/Virus blocker.

It happened to me once several years ago...

Spam is OK, cut up and fried with scrambled eggs.

Otherwise, I use a mail rule with Outlook. If you are not in my Contacts, you go to the Junk folder marked "Read". Once a week I check that folder and then delete it. Works for me...

And/or use a mailwasher program. I do and nothing gets downloaded to my computer and outlook until I have reviewed and ok'd it on the isp. What they don't catch, I catch. It goes out and gets me the from and subject lines and I can bounce most just by looking at the gobbledygook. I created a friends list and still review them before downloading. The mail washer program automatically goes out and gets the data. It will automatically do what I do if I set up the parameters.

On another note... .since 62kgw was mentioned.... I, too, recall that a few years ago, most all his/her posts were decently composed. They made sense, were spelled correctly, used the correct words, and were reasonably punctuated. Quite unlike most of the recent 62kgw posts which have a different appearance.... words run together, all upper or all lower case, missing grammar...etc. Original ones were easy to read as are mosts posts on this board. recent ones look like someone has been studying with DJFressssh. Maybe 62 had a lobotomy and is just trying to do their best now. I don't know.

Yes this board has been hacked. I have seen two messages that Craig Adams has posted. One for, KGON is now "Easy Listening". And the other, High Powered Christian FM Goes Dark. And not a one of them has been displayed? There must be a Internet Gremlin at work somewhere.

I saw that, too, and wondered if I was just experiencing my own "pilot error"...my computer is sometimes known to misbehave...

I too have noticed a few mystery non-posts in recent weeks.

I thought there was a way to totally remove a post, but I just tried it in another thread and the only options were to edit, or to cancel edit leaving the messages as it was.

Edit Profile is were you delete them. But the last post in the thread list will still show you even though you delete the post, at least till someone else posts.

Oh yah...two timers. Once the delete timer runs out you can only edit till that timer runs out. Don't remember the amount of time for both though.

Washnotore2 & Entre_nous: You're drawing conclusions. In both cases I decided after posting them and then reading them again from the pdxradio board, they weren't really pertinent, so I took them down. Sometimes when I read something for the first time on the web I over react.

Cool! Good to know, DT. Thanks. I've needed that once or twice...

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about the delete option in Edit Profile. It's been awhile since I've used it.

test - It doesn't work. A message is still left.

Now you dont

Test Works. Post prior to this one said "Now you see me"


Deleted through edit profile.

@Semoochie:

The little icon in the upper right only allows you to "Edit Post." However, on the left side menu at the bottom is "Edit Profile." When you log into it you will see a list of your recent posts with two icons, a pencil and a trash can that allow you to edit or completely remove the message.

It could be Semoochie doesn't have the "trash can" option if he hasn't updated this account in the last 5, 6 or 7 years. I had problems with editing before I updated.

craig sez: "In both cases I decided after posting them and then reading them again from the pdxradio board, they weren't really pertinent . . ."

I've done that too. Sometimes I write a little too harsh response, even for trolls.

But I did a have problem deleting my email address. One can't enter a "blank" nor can one enter a fake email. So I left it alone. What am I doing wrong?

Skep: You could have added your last post to the one before. I've tried to do this when I think of more to say. It saves space.

But it cuts my tally count. Keeping up with KSKD is hard work!

I have a t-mobile sidekick that I can access the internet from. The screen is 1 1/2" inch by 2" or so and manuevering without a mouse is a pain. And it took me a while to find the "," and I still don't know where the ";" is. (Obviously I'm not using the sidekick now!) I'm sure trying to get the edit function to work requires thicker glasses than the one I have now!

Hey Skep, grab the nearest 7 year old and show them the site. They will have it figured out in nothing flat and be able to set it up for you how you want it! You aren't one of those 12:00 flasher type's are you?

Randy & Craig, thanks, I'll look into it!

DT,

(when I tried to change my email I got a "ACCOUNT SUSPENDED" warning, so I backed out slowly . . .)

Weird, I'd send ol' Swammi Pastrammi an email and see if he can help out!

I'm 99% sure if you change your e-mail address, the account is disabled until you follow a link that gets sent in an e-mail to that new address. A lot of forums work that way now.

Yes! True, I also had a problem and ended up opening a new pdxradio account.

Anyone remember my post from about 3 years ago when I said "Hi, I'm new here! Look at my post count." It said 1 post.

If you click on my profile it says:

Craig_Adams
Last Logged In: Jan 18, 2008
Registed: April 23, 2005

Now go into the History threads and click on the first thread I started, then click on my old profile. You'll find among other things this:

Craigadams
Last Logged In April 22, 2005
Registered: Dec 31, 2002

Anyone who has a profile registered back to 2002 I believe would have problems deleting and editing posts. I know I did, until I changed. Also look at the date of the post itself: July 21, 2001. Those Registerd dates can be deceiving. I began posting in March 2001. By the way I still hear from people trying to contact me via my old E-Mailed address that still appears on those threads.

This was originally the reason I had to start a new account for my new E-Mail address. My old account would not except my new E-Mail address so I was unable to post for about a week until it was cleared but it's really paid off in the long run doing so.

For what it's worth, I used to correspond off-list with the person behind "62 kgw" a few years ago, though I never found out his real name. I have not received any recent e-mails from this person's e-mail address, nor have we heard as much as a peep out of this person on this thread.

Hey, it DOES work and I'm still listed as the last person to post on this thread! Thanks again!

Quite an observant bunch we have here discovering some of the strange nuances with the system. The way the board is set up right now, you can delete your own post within 120 minutes, and/or edit within 180 minutes as described above.

As far as certain accounts getting hacked, I haven't heard of any. People change, maybe an accident, stroke, age, whatever… affects the style or clarity of writing.

Email addresses are accessed thru profile info which requires a second click of the address card icon over to the far right of the poster’s name. Because it requires a second click to get into and is not readily available to search engine crawlers, I believe the info is difficult for evil spammers to latch onto and harvest. I could be wrong, but that’s my story and I’m holding to it. I can assure everyone that email addresses are kept in the strictest confidence on this end as described in the privacy policy, http://www.pdxradio.com/privacy.htm.

I did post the question about the heater on the towers thrAD SINCE i THOUGHT THAT KNOWLEDGEABLE ENGINEERS WOULD SEE IT AND OFFER SOM FEEDBACK HOPEFULLY.i DIDN'T THINK A NEW SEPERATE THREAD WAS JUSTIFIED FOR THAT.SORRY FOR THE CONFUSION PEOPLE!!!

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from someone using the same ISP that the 62kgw e-mails used to come from. He stated that he made the recent postings and that he is the same person who used to post as 62kgw years ago. I believe that the gentlemanly and proper thing for me to do is to take this person at his word.